I would count it as a Kill Kroozer I guess. Only problem with the Ork ships in BFG is, is that they're smaller than the Imperial ships. An Ork cruiser for example is only 6.5cm long, whilst an Imperial Light Cruiser is already 7.5.

Here are two more views. I haven't included the full frontal/back/bottom/right shots because they're still pretty empty. A top view gives you an idea of the proportions of the ship. But note that there's still a lot that will be added to the model.

I've been working on the ship some more and I'm running into a major problem: costs.

I did a test run on Shapeways, not actually printing the model, just uploading it to see how much it would cost. At the moment I'm at $45, and that doesn't include the mark-up, furthermore, the model is far from finished.

For a ship the size of an Ork Kroozer, this is simply too expensive. I tried putting the model in a pack of two, or even three, but then it lowers to around $40 a model. I've been trying to hollow it out, but that's a rather complex task, considering the shape of the ship.

Seriously, 3D printing is a poor technique for volume manufacturing: it's slow and expensive (exponentially so if you want high quality surface finish). If you're serious about making model kits then you need to invest yourself in real production techniques.

That's something I'd like to move towards in the future. However, I lack the experience, funding, time to do production and sales of these miniatures. That's why I was hoping I could outsource that.

Secondly, Dutch law kinda makes it impossible for me to start a shop, my company is registered at my house, if I want to produce/sell stuff, I'd need to rent a space that is designated as a 'shop space'. That would only be logical to do if this is something I want to do full time and completely go for it. The market for this sort of thing is just too small to do that thing, hence me wanting to outsource that stuff to those who are more qualified for it, so I can focus on designing these things.

For the printing I should most likely stick to lots of smaller stuff rather than big kits (for now), hence the name Bits Blitz.

I've done a lot of discussion of the business side of making models with many people and it's very difficult to sell kits in small volumes if you're not doing the casting yourself. If you outsource it that's another person who needs to make a profit and that increases the price. While Shapeways can be an interim solution for small parts, as you've found it becomes much less feasible as the models grow.

You don't need to launch immediately into a full blown business - I'm sure that Dutch law would have to have provision for people operating a "hobby business" out of their house? You're not going to turn into Games Workshop overnight - you will start off selling only a few kits. Worry about renting a workshop if and when you reach the point that you need to.

You don't need to launch immediately into a full blown business - I'm sure that Dutch law would have to have provision for people operating a "hobby business" out of their house? You're not going to turn into Games Workshop overnight - you will start off selling only a few kits. Worry about renting a workshop if and when you reach the point that you need to.

It's the selling bit that is complicated. I'm allowed to run a business from my home, but not a shop. That was why I'm looking for somebody else to take care of that part for me. I know Anvil Industry for example take care of the production/sales part for Miniatures of the North (at least their current rage). Troll Forged Miniatures would cast stuff submitted by sculptors .

Regarding the price, I know shops that sell design products (be it furniture, products, etc) here offer designers 10% of the retail price. A friend of mine worked on a project in which he received 10% of the retail price, production costs were around 65% and the store (producer and seller) would get the remaining 25%. I can imagine that the productioncosts when casting are a lot lower than printing at Shapeways.

However, building a home setup isn't that much of an option now anyways, I'm seriously lacking space. However, once there is a more stable income I can rent an office space for the work I normally do (writing) and could perhaps even set up shop there. However, I'm not that interested in becoming a miniatures company myself. I'd prefer to work with others on this regard, so design stuff for them, expand their game universes and so on.

mangozac wrote:But surely selling online doesn't constitute a physical shop, and therefore skirts around that issue? I can't imagine many of your potential customers would be from the same town?

But it would constitute as a shop if I would keep my own stock and such. An online shop should be fine, but only if the products are somewhere else, of if it's second hand stuff. That is kinda a vague territory in Dutch law. Most of the time it's no problem, but I've had friends of mine gotten in a lot of trouble just because they started an online shop at home (basically dealing with a moronic bureaucrat who doesn't get the idea that nowadays a lot of stuff is done online).

mangozac wrote:I don't believe that it can be that difficult, but since I've never even been to the Netherlands I'm not really qualified to argue it any further

It shouldn't be that difficult, in theory. But I have the tendency to always fall into the bureaucratic loopholes (have been, ever since I was very young), so for me it's something I can't really risk.

Also, I lack the budget/etc to really get started with casting. But maybe I'll do it in the future. I do like the idea of my own workshop where I can work as a writer, but also physically create stuff. For my girlfriend that would also be great, she works as a concept designer, so a space to create stuff is always needed.

Back to the Orky like ships! I've shortened the ship, replaced the engines, tweaked it like crazy!

The ship is 4cm long, making it an escort of a sorts. I'm testing a little bit with hollowing it out to see if that's even possible. A lot of the details are super small, I wonder if they'll be that visible, I guess this means I'll be doing a few more test prints soon.

Looking at the bigger picture, I can see these ships as raiders of a sorts, not sure yet how I would explain their shape and everything. They would make a nice thing for the Legion ships to fight against...

Some final details need to be added to the head and engines, then I need to keep on scraping tiny bits off it to make it look more wear and tear.

I would love to do some test prints soon to see how the details will look, a lot of it is very small, meaning it might be totally visible.

The more I look at this ship, the less I'm inclined to sell it through Shapeways. I might put it up there in the beginning, just to make it available, but in the end I just want to print this fellow property and see it cast. These make nice little buggers for the Legion ships to shoot at!

Placed the model next to a Legion ship to give it a sense of scale. Ideally the ship would have been 50% smaller, but as a model that simply wouldn't work. But for the artwork that might not pose such a problem. The picture posted here has the ships in 'model sizes', not 'artwork scale'.

I'll consider this ship done for now. I've tried hollowing it out, but it's impossible because the model is such a mess on the inside, trying to add multiple of them in a single .stl file has failed as well because the file would become too big.

At the moment it's too costly to sell them individually through Shapeways, printing costs alone are around €20 per ship, too expensive for a mere escort ship.

Plan now is to make a new version of the ship, make it hollow and multipart (separate head, main hull and a few weapon systems), and then see if I can get it printed at a better place after which I'll try to have it cast.

Just started on version 2.0. As you can see the design has changed somewhat. The head has been replaced for an array of weapons. To also link it a bit more to the rest of the setting I've also included some Legion ship styled guns in the mix.

It's still a very early WIP, most of the body still needs to be added, more weapons, etc. Not sure yet what will happen with the previous version of the ship, but the plan is to have 3-5 variants of this little fellow which could then be printed and cast. Since the models are quite small (3.5 - 4 cm long max) I'm tempted to keep them single piece. It wouldn't be too hard to cut them up and mix the components together.